Before we go crazy, pointing out the facts isn't exactly asperger's; after all, isn't that what is done to the bloomberg/brady/hci collective?

And putting on my computer professional hat, I note that even Windows 8 has command line stuff and Microsoft has released a totally new command line interface called Powershell, and is hot and heavy on pushing it onto the system admin types.

"And putting on my computer professional hat, I note that even Windows 8 has command line stuff and Microsoft has released a totally new command line interface called Powershell, and is hot and heavy on pushing it onto the system admin types."

Putting on my real world hat, I will point out that, if a movie scene is in a contemporary office setting, a black computer screen with a blinking cursor is practically the tech version of Chekov's Gun: Before the scene is over, someone's going to sit down and do some "hacking" with foley-ed IBM Model M sounds emanating from the generic keyboard.

I think you'll agree that in regular corporate America, the blinking cursor has become something of a rarity outside of IT departments since 1995 or so.

The computer with the CLI might not be a Chekov's Gun. If you begin the scene with a character doing something at a command line, complete with foleyed IBM Model M, it's not a plot point, but character development. The character at the keyboard is established as the Wizard, and he will later be performing Magic and perhaps intoning Fell Invocations (AKA technobabble), with or without a computer present.

On the other side of the spectrum of course they go full absurd like Die Hard 4 - "I'm hacking the Sat with my cell phone and my leet texting skills!"

(Yes, I am in IT, and yes, I have at one point or another actually run a few command line pieces of code on a server somewhere *from my phone*. However, just getting a Citrix session to work with a phone interface is such a massive pain its almost not worth it - outside of the geek points that no one in the real world cares about)

Command line interfaces are the computer world's version of the 10mm- powerful, capable, and generally ignored by most.

Fact is, unless you want to memorize a long list of commands and modifiers a GUI is a much easier way of getting the job done. There may be things that command line does better but there's very little that a GUI can't do well.

I like what The Raving Prophet said,"powerful, capable, and generally ingored by most."

About half of my industry runs on the same mid-60's operating system, and so I'm in a building of 300 people with command lines running on ASCII emulators housed on Win7 business machines. Looks pretty funny around here at times.

The command line is superior only if you know exactly WTF you are doing.

I like LINUX because I do have complete control as root at the command line.

But I do damned near all of my day to day stuff using a GUI as a mere user ... it's just easier than battering away on my keyboard, and stupid blunders are easily recoverable when you don't play Captain Root at the # prompt.

Back when you needed a Lisa computer to write a program for the early Macintosh, Apple wrote a series of books on the user interface.

If I recall correctly, the menu was intended to serve new users, to offer prompts and shortcuts for experienced users, and let power users skip all the graphical stuff.

Then again, I recall working at Star Technologies, with a battery of (cheap) used text-only terminals -- and picking up typing speed on the keypunch. We pulled Hearlbleed gags with RSTS/E to embarrass other students. And used chad from the keypunches to mess up the neighbor's carpet in the dorm (pile of chad outside the door, chemistry bunsen burner hose inflated with water from the shower, hose the whole thing under the door. Takes years to get all those chunks of coverstock out of the carpet.) Moving from IBM System 360 to System 370. The IBM terminal with two second delay, so customers wouldn't notice if the machine was slow -- and recognizing CICS programming at work in the computers at work this week. RIP Grace Hopper, and "a nano second is 9 inches of wire".

I run Win 7 at home. Currently I support Mac, Win 7, Win 8 and a couple of server platforms at work. I have Linux loaded on an old laptop so I can play with it, do not claim any great skillz in command line.

But in social situations, if someone asks what I do, I'm a bicycle mechanic. Telling people you work in IT is a good way to do free tech support while everyone else eats.

"(I'd still have a running 98SE machine, too, but it finally died the death)"Under this very desk resides a machine whose innards contain a pair of hard drives, one of which dual boots to 98SE or Xubunu 7.04. I'd gladly ship it to ya, if you've a real hankerin' for nostalgia.Sorry, but a few years ago somebody spoke up and got my TI99/4A or I'd offer that, too. ;^)Rob J

Clearly, you're going to the wrong geek parties. MY group's parties involve pig roasts, motorcycles, PNW homebrew, and bonfires to go with the shop talk. And sometimes we'll toss some Magnesium in the fire just for funsies

I thought you were talking about how "2010,The Year We Make Contact" looks so much more dated -- almost like one of those 50's space movies by comparison, than did the "Prequel", 2001: a Space Odyssey.I understand that an effort was made by the set and prop designers of 2001 to try to make the technology seem beyond what the audience understood, perhaps analogous to someone from a remote area of, say, Borneo or New Guinea, or the Kalahari, who had never even seen guns or metal, seeing NASA Mission Control for the first time.

I still use CLI on a daily basis, but I'm an IT geek, and it's part of my job. I spend a not-inconsiderable amount of time arguing with management that we need CLI for certain functions. But what do I know, I'm just the guy they call when their super-expensive computer systems stop working.

Clearly, you're going to the wrong geek parties. MY group's parties involve pig roasts, motorcycles, PNW homebrew, and bonfires to go with the shop talk. And sometimes we'll toss some Magnesium in the fire just for funsies

Sounds like WetLeather to me! But you forgot to mention the riding that goes along with the Gather.